


I had a dream, or was it real?

by ThunderstormsandMemories



Category: Will (TV 2017)
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Literary References & Allusions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-25
Updated: 2017-07-25
Packaged: 2018-12-06 21:23:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11609229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThunderstormsandMemories/pseuds/ThunderstormsandMemories
Summary: tfw the man you're probably supposed to be interested in abandons you at a party and you end up having a drunken heart-to-heart with his sister which somehow turns into a relationshipor,AU as of like halfway through 1x04 ft. complaining about men, frantic backstage make-out sessions, and an evening in a tavern containing an unexpected moment of mlm/wlw solidaritybackground Shakespeare/Marlowe





	I had a dream, or was it real?

**Author's Note:**

> I've only watched through 1x04 so if anything gets contradicted later, this is an AU anyway so it doesn't matter don't worry about it
> 
> title from cut to the feeling by carly rae jepson
> 
> literally no one asked for this and I wrote it for myself because I didn't want to work on my thesis but if you're reading enjoy!!

“Typical men,” said Moll. “Bringing us to a party and then leaving us to entertain ourselves while they find someone more interesting to flirt with.” It was supposed to be funny, but Alice frowned, staring at her with something uncomfortably close to pity.

“I think you’re very interesting,” she said, “and also very pretty. I’m sure my brother does as well.”

Moll felt herself blushing, told herself it was just the wine, and took another drink to cover her hesitation while she figured out which part of Alice’s rather surprising comment to respond to. First of all, Alice was beautiful, and she had never been good at accepting compliments from beautiful women. And secondly, she had almost completely forgotten Richard was Alice’s brother. Which wasn’t her fault, she hadn’t known either of them that long, and they rarely spoke of each other or acted at all similar, let alone looked alike. It wasn’t her fault, but it did make things potentially awkward.

“That’s very kind of you,” she said finally. “Though you’re wrong about your brother. He told me as much to my face.” There. Focus on that part. Don’t focus on the part where she’s a pretty girl and you’re a pretty girl and you’re alone together at this party more than halfway to drunk.

Alice was still frowning, even more intensely now. “Then he’s a fool.”

“On that we can definitely agree,” said Moll, laughing, and then, when Alice was still giving her that _look_ she said, earnestly, “Listen, Alice, just because your brother doesn’t think I’m attractive doesn’t mean that I don’t know it myself. We’re friends, even though he is a fool, and besides, I’ve always rather preferred the company of women.”

“Is that so?” said Alice, which was definitely not the reaction Moll was expecting. It was entirely possible Alice was either too tipsy or too oblivious to realize what she’d said. And then, thoughtfully, a little wistfully, swirling the wine in her goblet like she was about to do a monologue, she said, “You know, I’ve always wondered what it would be like to kiss a woman.”

“Really,” said Moll, who had been entirely unprepared for the way this conversation was going.

“Yeah,” said Alice. “You know how sometimes I dress as a man so that I can follow my friends to the tavern? You’ve seen me there like that, I think, when you’ve come with my brother. The point is, sometimes women flirt with me, and men too, sometimes, when they think I’m a man. And some of the women get closer and realize I’m a woman and they don’t stop flirting with me, and the thing is, I don’t want them to.” She was standing closer to Moll than she had been when she’d started speaking, her face painfully open and earnest as she poured out her heart in the middle of a crowded party as if they were the only two people in the world. “But I’ve still never kissed any of them, I always lose my nerve, but I want to. I wish…” She paused, sighing the deep sigh of the melancholy and the intoxicated. “I wish I were braver. I wish I weren’t getting married. To a man, and not even a man that I care for.”

She fell silent, and Moll said, cautiously, “I don’t mean to tell you what to do, but marriage is not necessarily an obstacle.”

“And don’t I know it,” said Alice, with unexpected bitterness. “Although it was my understanding that it was for men to do as they pleased, regardless of whether they were married or whose heart they might break.”

“I take it you and Master Shakespeare are no longer seeing each other, if that’s the case.”

“Unfortunately, we continue to see rather too much of each other,” said Alice, “whether we wish to or not. We were happy, and then we weren’t, and I’d thought we might be happy again until tonight. He has a wife, back home in Stratford, and three small children, did you know? I do know, and then he speaks, and the things he does with words are so beautiful that I forget about everything except his words, his dreams, his lips.”

“Good with his mouth, is he?” said Moll, who really couldn’t resist.

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” said Alice, blushing, who clearly knew exactly what she meant and agreed.

“I’m sure,” said Moll.

“But he surely must have charmed her this way once, and now she’s left behind in Stratford, and he’s here charming me like I’m his Helen, his Sylvia, his Muse, and then he brings me to a party only to cast me aside to flirt with… with…”

“With Christopher Marlowe?” said Moll.

“I was going to say strange women,” said Alice. “I was trying to be polite. Wait, what do you mean he’s flirting with Marlowe?”

“Have you seen them together?” said Moll. “Although you’re right, flirting is probably the wrong word. I should think it’s likely gone past there by now.”

“They did leave the party together in rather a hurry,” said Alice. “Well, perhaps they can break each other’s hearts and leave the rest of us alone.”

“And then write it into poetry in their plays and become even more famous, beyond the wildest dreams of us mere mortals.”

“Ugh,” said Alice. “Writers.” And then, after a moment: “I suppose I shouldn’t care. I’m getting married soon anyway, to someone boring and respectable, of whom the best that I can say is that he’ll keep out of my way and not prevent me from continuing to work with the theatre. And yet it still bothers me, that I have so little time left of freedom, limited freedom though it admittedly is, and I don’t have Will anymore and I’ve still never even kissed a woman.”

“One of those problems,” Moll said, “is easier to fix than all the others.” When Alice didn’t seem to understand which one she meant, she clarified. “I can’t prevent your marriage or make Will any less of an ass. Though if Will or any other man breaks your heart again I’ll eat his in the marketplace.”

“Thank you,” said Alice, momentarily distracted by clutching Moll’s hand in gratitude before going back to the original subject. “But how will I prevent myself from losing my nerve, whenever I find a woman I think might want to kiss me? Because I never know for sure, and I don’t want to be wrong.”

“You’re beautiful,” said Moll, “and I’m good at reading people. I can find you someone-”

Alice didn’t appear to be listening to her. “You’re a woman,” she said. “You could kiss me.”

None of this was fair, Moll decided. Alice was drunk, and Moll was most of the way there herself. Alice was also beautiful, cheeks flushed, hair floating softly around her head like a golden veil, or whatever the fuck a poet would’ve said, her parted lips were stained dark with wine, and she was looking at Moll like she’d never seen her before, eyes wide, pupils dark, like she was drinking her in. She was drunk, and if she even remembered this conversation in the morning, she would most likely look back on it with embarrassment and never be able to meet Moll’s eyes again.

“Not tonight,” she said. “Ask me again tomorrow.”

“Is that a promise?” Alice said, slinging one arm over Moll’s shoulders, her hand warm on Moll’s skin.

“It’s a promise,” Moll said. “Now let’s go find your brother before he gets into too much trouble.”

\---

That should have been the end of it. Except that, before the night had gotten so out of control, Moll had also promised Will that she would show him her costume design concepts for some of the new characters he was working on. Except that Will wasn’t at the theatre when she arrived the next morning, but Alice was.

She looked tired, but otherwise not nearly as hungover as Moll expected her to be. “Good morning,” Moll said.

“Is it?” Alice said. “Are you looking for Will? He’s not here, even though he promised he would be.”

“I see,” said Moll, aware that her palms were sweating and that she was starting to crush her design sketches in her hands. She shouldn’t be nervous. This was silly.

“I recall you also made a promise to me last night,” said Alice, voice low, stepping closer.

“So you meant what you were saying after all,” said Moll, who had been starting to wonder if that conversation had even really happened, or if had been a dream brought on by a combination of wishful thinking and too much wine.

“Of course I did,” said Alice, sounding offended but still continuing to move closer, so that Moll would’ve hardly had to move to take her hands. “Did you?”

She was so close, close enough that Moll could hear her quiet breathing, could count her eyelashes, and Moll could barely breathe. She closed her eyes. “Yes,” she said. “I did.”

And then Alice grabbed her wrist, and Moll opened her eyes again, confused. “What…”

“We’re on the stage,” Alice said. “Anyone could just walk in here. Do you want to go somewhere more private?”

“If that’s what you want,” said Moll, and she was rewarding by Alice smirking and pulling her back into the labyrinth that was backstage.

She hoped that Alice’s first kiss with a woman was all that she’d thought it would be. It wasn’t Moll’s first, but it was one of the best. Before Moll had ever kissed anyone, she’d imagined it to be a magical life-changing experience. And then she’d exchanged some hasty and inexperienced kisses with the girl who lived next door, and her mistress’s other maid, and even a few women in the alleyways outside taverns, and none of them had done anything for her other than make her realize how wet and unappealing human mouths were. Kissing Alice was nothing like that.

Alice kissed her like she meant it, like she was trying to set Moll’s mouth on fire with the intensity of it, and her hands were in Moll’s hair and their bodies pressed together, and when they broke apart Moll was gasping for air and desperate to kiss her again.

“That,” Alice said, “was even better than I thought it would be.”

“Does that mean you want to do it again?”

But before Alice had a chance to answer, there was the quiet scraping of a door being opened, and they jumped apart, both frantically smoothing their hair and straightening their clothing and praying the intruder wouldn’t notice their expressions or their flushed cheeks.

“Hello, Alice,” said Will awkwardly. “What are you doing here so early?”

“This is my theatre,” said Alice. “I can be here whenever I please. You, on the other, do need a reason.”

“I was meeting Moll,” he said, “to go over costume ideas.”

“Oh,” said Alice. “I knew that. Unfortunately, you’ll have to wait. Moll and I are… busy…” She looked desperately at Moll as if she might have an excuse, some way to help her out of this hole she’d dug for herself.

“We’re talking about dresses,” Moll said.

“Like, costume dresses?” Will said. “Maybe I should be there for that. After all, the costumes are for my plays.”

“Not these ones," said Moll. “These ones are…”

“Wedding dresses,” Alice said suddenly. “For my wedding. To Keenan.”

“Ah,” said Will, face falling. “I’ll just go, then, shall I?”

“Yes, that’s probably best,” said Alice, and as soon as he was out of earshot she dissolved into laughter. “Shall we continue where we left off?”

“Yes, that’s probably best,” Moll echoed, still laughing as she leaned in to kiss her again.

\---

By the time Christopher Marlowe walked into the tavern, Moll and Alice had each had enough drinks that they were holding hands under the table and not-so-subtly nudging each other’s feet with their own. “What is he doing here?” Alice said, and Moll, who had been rather distracted by Alice hooking her ankle around her calf, had to take a moment to process what she’d said.

“Who?” Alice nodded toward the door, her hair spilling over onto Moll’s shoulder. “Oh. Him.” To be honest, Moll didn’t much care about theatre rivalries, except for how much Alice cared, and she had no personal quarrel with Marlowe except that he was a writer, and a pretentious one at that, and Alice didn’t like him. She wasn’t entirely sure how Will felt about him most days, and she didn’t think that Will did either.

She would have been entirely content ignoring Marlowe and going back to her conversation with Alice, which was half about theatre, half about Ovid, and entirely interspersed with not-so-subtle pet names and innuendo. Will, sitting on Moll’s other side, was looking increasingly uncomfortable and Moll couldn’t bring herself to feel too much sympathy for him. Served him right for eavesdropping and also for not appreciating Alice as much as she deserved.

Will hadn’t noticed Marlowe yet either, until Alice shouted, over the low roar of tavern conversation, “What the fuck are you doing here?”

He had the gall to look around, feigning surprise, as if she could be shouting at anyone else, but then again, Alice wasn’t wrong when she said he should be on stage. He certainly had the ego for it. And then, instead of answering, he made his way through the crowd to their table and invited himself to sit next to Will. “Can’t I ever join my friends for a drink?”

“We’re not friends,” said Richard, who also took any opportunity to invite himself into a conversation.

“I wasn’t,” Marlowe said deliberately, putting an arm around Will’s shoulder, “talking about you.”

“We’re working on a new play together,” Will said quickly, before anyone could get the wrong idea. Or the right one, more likely.

“Is that what they’re calling it these days?” whispered Alice in Moll’s ear, and Moll had to choke back her laughter.

“Really?” Richard said. “Is there a part for me? The lead role?”

Marlowe opened his mouth, probably to say that he’d rather die before writing any part for such an inferior actor, let alone the lead, but Will cut him off. “Yes,” he said, with a glance at Marlowe. “We’re drawing from history. You’ll be a Duke. Very heroic and grand.”

“And if you’re not up to it I’m sure we could ask Edward Alleyn to step in,” said Marlowe.

“Shut up, Kit,” said Will, and Moll gave Alice a significant look. “It’s a good role.”

“It is a good role,” said Marlowe. Will elbowed him in the side, and he added, grudgingly, almost bored, “It’s a good role and I’m sure you’ll act it well.”

“Did you hear that?” Richard said, turning to Autolycus, who was struggling to make himself look suitably impressed. “That was a compliment. I just got a compliment from one of the best playwrights in London.”

“You’re drunk,” said Alice. “Go home.”

“ _I_ compliment you all the time,” said Will, indignantly.

“Yeah, but you don’t count,” said Richard. “Because you’re you. Not that you’re not also great but it’s like. You’re one of us. It’s like getting compliments from your family. You know they mean it but it still kind of feels like they have to say it.”

“Yeah, but you said he was one of the best playwrights in London. What does that make me?” He started to stand up, as if he was going to fight Richard over it right here and now. Hopefully he wouldn’t break his nose again. Moll didn’t think she was up to soothing his ego a second time.

“The other best playwright in London,” said Marlowe, pulling him back down to his seat and rubbing his shoulders soothingly. “It’s a big city; surely her walls can encompass more than one great writer.” And then, when Will still looked doubtful: “Don’t worry, it’s not like I would waste my talents on just anybody. You’re still special.”

“Don’t tell him that,” Alice said. “He’ll let it go to his head, and then where will we be?”

“Trying not to get stepped on, most like, or to wither away in his shadow. If the rest of him grows to match his ego, he’ll be tall as the Colossus.”

“I liked it better when you weren’t friends,” Will said, head in hands.

“We’re not,” said Alice. “We just have a common interest.”

“Yes, tormenting me, apparently,” said Will.

“You know we love you,” said Alice, and Marlowe ruffled Will’s hair.

“I hate all of you,” he said, voice muffled by his hands and the fact that his head was nearly on the table. “Except you, Moll. You’re still alright.”

Moll took that as her cue to change the subject. “What were we talking about before?” she said. “Something your new play? A history, was it?”

“It still needs work,” said Will. “Please, it’s all I’ve been thinking about all day.”

“If the play had been what you’d been thinking of today,” Marlowe said, giving Will a pointed look, “perhaps we might have gotten some work done on it. In any case, tonight is too young and bright for us to waste it telling sad tales of the deaths of kings. Which is all the history play is, really.”

“ _You_ wrote a history play,” said Will, turning to look more directly at Marlowe’s face and nearly knocking over Moll’s drink as he did so. She was reconsidering her decision to rescue him from being mocked.

“Yes,” Marlowe said, “and you’ll notice that the king in question did, in fact, die.” Will raised his eyebrows, the shit-eating grin of a man about to make a dirty joke appearing on his face, and Marlowe rolled his eyes. “Not everything is a pun.”

“Just most things,” said Will. “Isn’t that the fun part about writing? At any rate, you’re the one who used that particular pun in the very first scene. You can hardly blame me for recalling it.”

“Yes, but just because a double meaning exists doesn’t mean it necessarily applies every time,” said Marlowe. They got like this sometimes, arguing about the finer points of language, and Moll thought it was best to ignore them until they were ready to hold a conversation that wasn’t about poetry, a subject on which they could both be, according to Alice, inspiring but which Moll found rather pretentious. Writers.

“True, you don’t necessarily need to apply the double meaning every time,” said Will, “but often it’s better if you do.”

“So that means that when you tell me you’ve thought of a line about how cowards die many times but the valiant only once…” Marlowe gave an exaggerated shrug. “Well, if that’s true then I suppose I must be thankful I’m not valiant.”

“If that’s the case,” Moll said, “someone ought to find the valiant better partners, so that they too may, as one might, if one were a poet, die everlasting deaths. What’s the point in valor if that’s how it’s rewarded?”

“Speaking of finding partners,” said Richard, who had finally found a part of the conversation he could follow, “are you sure you won’t let me find a man to court you? I have friends-”

“I would rather,” said Moll firmly, leaning across the table and brandishing her goblet like a blade, “hear all my mistress’s dogs bark at a crow than hear a _man_ confess his love to me.”

As she sat back, Alice whispered in her ear, “Lucky for you, then, that I’m no man.”

“Indeed,” she said, resting her head briefly on Alice’s shoulder, closing her eyes and wishing they were alone and she could bury her hands in Alice’s hair and press her lips to Alice’s neck.

“And you, fair sister, what happened to your marriage to the beer man?”

“I will marry him,” Alice said, squeezing Moll’s hand more tightly under the table. “He understands that I need more time to adjust to the idea.”

“If we’re to talk of marriage,” Marlowe said, “I’m leaving.”

“Are you not married, then?” said Alice.

“No,” said Marlowe, “nor do I ever intend to be.”

“I’ll drink to that,” said Moll, rubbing her thumb over Alice’s, their hands still tightly clasped together, and she and Marlowe clinked their goblets together to celebrate their rare moment of agreement and solidarity. Will had his head in his hands again.

“This is Hell,” he said, “nor am I out of it. I came here to drink and be merry, not be reminded of my life.”

“How unfortunate for you, then,” said Marlowe, “that life has a way of reminding one of itself, like…” He gestured vaguely, as if he could conjure the correct comparison from the air.

“Like a mirror up to nature,” said Richard, and Will sighed tiredly. Alice giggled into Moll’s shoulder, and Moll petted her hair.

“Indeed,” said Marlowe, looking distinctly unimpressed. “I hear that’s your acting method. I do hope it’s working for you, with your big lead role tomorrow night and all.” Somehow he almost managed to make it sound sincere, as if he didn’t know perfectly well that unless Will’s next play was a popular success the Theatre would collapse under the weight of Burbage’s debts and the tensions within the company. At least he didn’t look too smug about it, although Moll thought that was probably because if he did it would hurt Will’s pride.

“It’s going to be amazing,” said Richard, which wasn’t exactly true. The show they were putting on wasn’t new, which meant most audience already knew it, but they’d never done it before, which meant they didn’t, and Moll was just the girl who helped with costumes sometimes so what did she know, but in her opinion they should’ve stuck to comedies. At least Kemp could reliably get a laugh.

Alice laughed, short and harsh, and said, “It’s supposed to be the Spanish Tragedy, Richard, not the Spanish Comedy. When I saw it rehearsed, it did make my eyes water, but with laughter, not with sorrow!”

Marlowe looked as though he might burst with the effort of containing his smugness, and everyone else was entirely too drunk to be worrying about tomorrow, so Moll took pity on them and said, “It will be fine, and anyway none of us can do anything about it now except try not to be too hungover by cannons.”

“And tragicomedy is the next big thing,” Marlowe said, “apparently. Honestly, in my opinion the Spanish Tragedy is overdone; maybe if it were played as comedic it would be more interesting.”

“That’s twice he’s complimented me in one night,” Richard said to Will. “Why can’t you be more like him?”

“Because when I compliment you, you say I’m just trying to flatter you to make you feel better about playing shit roles,” said Will.

“You do flatter me to make me feel better about playing shit roles,” said Richard.

“Works, though, doesn’t it?” said Alice.

“Well, yes,” said Richard, “but that’s hardly the point.”

“Regardless,” said Moll, “my point is, in the interest of not completely fucking up tomorrow, we should all get some rest.” Well. Richard should get some rest, but they should all go home so that Moll and Alice could steal some time alone for each other.

“You’re right, as usual,” said Richard, standing up to leave, and the rest of the table followed suit. Moll let go of Alice’s hand, and Alice let her palm rest against Moll’s thigh for a moment longer than was strictly necessary or proper. Moll could feel her touch through her skirts, and she wished they were alone and she could do away with her skirts and leave nothing between Alice’s lovely skilled hands and her skin.

“I should retire as well,” Marlowe was saying, having finally taken back his arm from around Will’s shoulders.

“What happened to the night being young and bright?” said Will.

“That was several drinks ago,” said Marlowe. “But you’re right, of course, sweet friend.” He clapped Will on the back, and Moll would have made fun of them for being unable to go for more than a moment without touching if she hadn’t spent the entire evening with Alice’s hand in hers, sitting so close that their shoulders and knees were pressed together. “We have a play to write, and you still owe me an act.”

Will groaned. “I don’t know if I have any words left in me tonight, and none worthy of sharing the page with yours.” He reached up and briefly, lightly, laid his hand on Marlowe’s cheek. “Thy worth, I’m afraid, is far above my gifts.” He let his hand fall, and he didn’t say the next line, but if Moll recognized one of Marlowe’s lines than surely Marlowe himself would as well, and would be able to fill in the gap for himself: _therefore, to equal it, receive my heart_.

It was almost sweet, but also fittingly conceited, to let someone sweet-talk you with your own words, and Moll wasn’t sure if she was rolling her eyes at the sentimentality or the arrogance. Though she supposed that was their business, and they both seemed happy enough, distracted enough by each other that Will was no longer pursuing Alice, which was really mostly what Moll cared about.

And then, because she couldn’t resist, and because the collar of Will’s shirt had been slipping steadily lower all evening, leaving visible a handful of bruises whose origins she could easily guess at, she said, “You’ve got something on your neck, did you know?”

“I take back every nice thing I ever said about you,” he said, flushing, his hand reflexively trying to cover the marks. Marlowe coughed into his hand, trying and failing to hide his smug smile. “You’re just as bad as the others.” And then he turned on Marlowe, who had given up trying not to look amused. “And you’re even worse.”

“I thought that’s what you liked about me, darling.”

“Enjoy your night,” Moll said, and Alice turned her laughter into a fake cough that was even less convincing than Marlowe’s.

Alice linked her arm through Moll’s for the walk home, smiling as she did so, because they could get away with this much, being mistaken for a pair of good friends and nothing else. It was an illusion that held all the way home, and through their goodnights to Richard, all the way up until the door to Alice’s room closed behind them and Alice pushed her against the wall and kissed her fiercely until she forgot her own name, until nothing else mattered but her lips, her tongue, her hands.

**Author's Note:**

> this was supposed to be short and could've ended after they kiss for the first time but I wanted more friend group banter and marlowe being marlowe so. oops
> 
> I'm not pretentious enough to put footnotes on a fanfic but uh. I was pretty tempted honestly so anyway here's everything I was quoting bc I'm vain enough to put y'all through that  
> -the parts about eating someone's heart in the marketplace and "rather hear a dog bark at a crow than a man say he love me" are from much ado  
> -the bit about the Colossus and the city encompassing just one man are from caesar, as is the line about cowards dying many times and listen. listen I couldn't resist I will never be over dying as a euphemism for coming literally never I'm still 12 at heart  
> -everlasting deaths and "this is hell nor am I out of it" are from faustus  
> -sad stories about the deaths of kings is richard ii  
> -"which when I saw rehearsed I must confess made mine eyes water, etc" I paraphrased from some lines from midsummer when philostrate is describing the production of pyramus and thisbe. it's not actually, like, that important a passage but I had to learn all of philostrate's lines for class a while ago and they stuck with me and also tend to get cut so. there I can pretend it was a useful thing to know  
> -the history play they're talking about is edward ii, which is also where I got "thy worth, sweet friend, is far above my gifts: therefore, to equal it, receive my heart" because uh. I have lots of feelings and opinions about that play and like. on one hand I'm a sappy gay romantic but on the other hand I'm amused by someone trying to seduce marlowe with his own lines. mostly I'm amused because it would probably work  
> -why does Moll remember a random pair of lines from edward ii, you ask? same reason I do, she's gay, do I need a better reason


End file.
